Ever since the days of Ronald Reagan there’s been a running theme that “less government is better.” The companion theme has been “the government can’t run anything as well as the private sector.” Both of these themes are wrong.

In the U.K. where I grew up the railways were privatized, including the tracks. This led to an increase in crashes because the company charged with maintaining the tracks could make more profit by performing less maintenance. Privatized air traffic control will be more profitable with fewer employees, especially if they are less qualified and can be paid less and encouraged to work longer hours. The consequence will be more crashes.

Some important endeavors in the public interest cannot be trusted to private companies which are only interested in profitability.